Mark Cavendish celebrates after winning Stage Two between Vise and Tournai.

Sponsored Links

The British speed specialist showed what he can do Monday without any assistance from his Sky teammates, flying past German rival Andre Greipel in the last few meters to lead a tight sprint and win Stage 2 in Belgium.

It was the 21st Tour stage victory for a man with ambitions of winning gold at the London Olympics.

A rising sports star at home, he has been consigned to a backseat role because his new team is focusing on Bradley Wiggins' hopes of becoming the first Briton to win the Tour. Cavendish has been all but left to fend for himself in the sprints.

"It was always going to be difficult to win stages — if anything it made me kind of more relaxed," Cavendish said. "In the past, I've always had a dedicated team to sprint with … so there was always that pressure to win."

The top standings didn't change after bunched finish in the 207.5-kilometer (129-mile) course from Vise to Tournai — the race's last day in Belgium before heading to France.

Wiggins, a three-time Olympic champion, is second — 7 seconds behind leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who retained the yellow jersey for a third day after seizing it in Saturday's opening prologue.

Defending champion Cadel Evans is eighth, 17 seconds behind Cancellara. The Australian has been overshadowed this season by Wiggins winning three multi-stage races.

In past years, Cavendish was the star of his teams and enjoyed the support of one or several lead-out riders to help him conserve energy for a burst of speed at the finish line.

Not anymore.

In public, at least, Cavendish seems to be adjusting to the team-player role.

"I always said I wanted to make history," said the 27-year-old native of the Isle of Man. "That means winning a lot of sprints, but there's not many better ways to make history than be part of a team that wins the Tour de France with a British rider."

Cavendish's main support rider with Sky has been Bernard Eisel of Austria, with Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway — a rising star who last year won two Tour stages — in a backup role.

Cavendish is not a likely contender for the Tour title because he struggles in the mountains and fares less well than complete riders like Evans and Wiggins in the time trials, which have taken on a greater importance in this year's 99th edition of cycling's showcase race.

On Monday, Cavendish just wanted to be opportunistic: "I was a bit like, 'give it a shot, see what happens, and if you don't win, you don't win — we've got bigger things to try for here.'"

It paid off. With several hundred meters to go and Greipel trailing his lead-out man — New Zealand's Gregory Henderson — Cavendish stayed close to the German's back wheel.

As Henderson peeled away to let Greipel go it alone, Cavendish whizzed by on the left and nosed ahead with five meters to go as the German bobbed frenetically in a failed effort to stave off the Briton's surge.

"Normally I win by some bike lengths. Today I had to lunge at the line, so you see that it wasn't too easy," Cavendish said.

Cavendish is renowned for his short fuse, and he rebuffed a reporter who suggested that Sky appeared to have two goals - success for him in the quest for the green jersey awarded to the best sprinter, and Wiggins' hopes for the yellow.

"There are not two objectives. There's one objective," Cavendish said gruffly.

He also sought to dispel speculation that he might be already looking ahead to the London Olympics, at which he will be one of the favorites to win gold in the road race.

"It (the Tour) is the most beautiful race of the year for me," he said. "Here, it's the Tour de France … I can't say the Olympics are more important."

The riders' only climbing challenge Monday was a winding, low-grade ascent up the citadel of Namur — a medieval town that is the capital of the French-speaking Wallonia region of Belgium and hosts an annual beer festival in the spring.

The flat layout helped riders keep pace with each other in a tight pack against the wind, setting the stage for a sprint finish.

Three breakaway riders, including Anthony Roux of France with an injured left wrist which hung limply by his handlebars, led for most of the day. The pack swallowed up Roux, the last to hold out, with 14 kilometers left.

Nursing injuries from crashes in Sunday's stage, Tony Martin of Germany — the reigning world time-trial champion — and Luis Leon Sanchez of Spain straggled across the finish line, 4:22 back of the main pack.

On Tuesday, the three-week race returns home for more mostly flat stages before the Alps in the following week and Pyrenees in the week after that. The race finishes July 22 on Paris' Champs-Elysees.

Next up though is a 197-kilometer (122-mile) trek from Orchies to the English Channel fishing town of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted | Updated

USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines.